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Livin'
With The Sims:
theAntiELVIS explores the wild and wacky world that is Will Wright's The Sims,
asking the inevitable quesiton, "is The Sims the first step toward a virtual
life where everyone is Swedish?"

Okay. So we know that games
are going to get better someday. But what about now? What can
you do to minimize your chances of experiencing simulator sickness from
the games that are around today?

Since there are few quantifiable
facts about the specific biological causes of simulator sickness, there
are no known surefire methods that can be taken to prevent it, short
of not exposing yourself to a situation that causes simulator sickness.
There are drugs (such as Dramamine, Benadryl, Bonine, and Marezine)
and herbal remedies that offer varying degrees of protection from motion
sickness, but these work sporadically and are in no way a cure, and
do little or nothing to prevent simulator sickness.

Much like with alcohol, the
only way to not get sick for sure is to avoid it. And the only way to
eliminate the negative effects once they're there is to wait them out.
And speaking of alcohol…

It is commonly accepted that
drugs and alcohol decrease the body's ability to compensate for rapidly
changing environments, and that using them can bring on the effects
of motion sickness or make people more susceptible to getting it. I
think we can all see why that would be true.

With this in mind, the best
thing you can do to hedge your bets is to stay away from drugs and alcohol
while playing 3D games, as they further confuse the nervous system and
can often heighten the effects of sickness.

It's also a good idea to
stop playing right away if you begin to feel sick. Research shows that
the lingering effects of simulator sickness become more serious with
prolonged exposure. So, if you continue to play while you feel sick,
odds are that your symptoms will continue to get worse and last for
a longer period of time after you stop playing.

As mentioned earlier, there
has been some discussion of this issue in Quake newsgroups, and
a common "unofficial" remedy offered there is to switch from using hardware
acceleration to purely software. While there is no official research
to back this up, it seems to have worked for a lot of people. Changing
from hardware to software rendering reduces the game's frame rate and
use of lighting effects, which doesn't "invite" you into the game as
much. Some day, as discussed earlier, it will ultimately be best to
fully immerse yourself, but for now, until these games can truly reproduce
reality, it's probably best to stay on the sidelines if you begin to
feel sick. Of course, many new games are hardware only, which unfortunately
eliminates this method as a solution.

So what's
the bottom line, here?

So, I've just thrown a lot
of information at you, much of which is admittedly only theoretical
and hypothetical. What's the basic lesson that comes out of all of this?
We now have games that are sophisticated enough to invite our bodies
to believe that we're actually inside the world of the game, but once
we're there, the games aren't good enough yet to be fully convincing.
This discrepancy can cause simulator sickness. Someday, these games
probably will be realistic enough to safely reproduce virtual
worlds, but we're not there yet.

If you begin to feel sick
while playing, stop. It's only going to get worse. If you're getting
sick from playing a game that's running in hardware acceleration mode,
try switching to software mode. Doing that reduces the game's ability
to "invite" you inside, and therefore doesn't "disappoint" your senses
as much.

If you're a developer, it's
best to focus your best efforts on the 3D rendering engines and sound
systems in the games. In light of the facts about simulator sickness,
take this very seriously. If your games cannot effectively reproduce
a 3D world, complete with completely believable visuals and sound cues,
and, preferably, force feedback, your players are going to encounter
difficulties while playing. Everything else won't matter at that point.

In a sense, it's scary to
imagine that our technology has reached a point where many people can't
use it because it's too much of an affront to their senses. However,
as we progress, things will get better. We are the people on the forefront
of this push to make our games more enjoyable, and to eliminate these
kinds of problems when they arise.

This is a very controversial
issue, and one that will surely excite and aggravate a lot of readers.
That's why loonygames decided to
go with it. However, I want to stress that I am not a doctor, a medical
student, or a psychologist. And while I have done an inordinate amount
of research on this topic, and have tried to understand for myself,
and then clearly explain to you, what I have learned, there are inevitably
going to be things that I've discussed that people will not agree with.

If you have any questions
about this topic, or if you can contribute facts, please send them to
our feedback section. This article is only
meant to begin the discussion about simulator sickness and video games,
and we look forward to further exploring this issue, learning more facts,
clarifying existing facts, and correcting any mistakes or misconceptions
that either we have made or are floating around in the widely available
research.

This is cool stuff. This
is serious stuff. We have the power to affect the future of gaming.
We need to move forward with these issues on our minds!